So I’m told there was some political news this past week. I confess I’ve grown weary of living in interesting times. Give me some good old fashioned boredom and I’d be quite happy. It’s an election year, so I guess that’s not going to happen soon. I try to stay out of politics on this blog for my own personal and mental well-being, but every now and then I make a mistake and opine on some subject. Time for some Q&A:

So what’s your opinion of the Trump verdict?

There’s no question that Trump brought this all on himself with his sleazy behavior. There’s just no way around it. He’s a rotten human being by any standard you care to use. Republicans had any number of alternatives, most of whom are better human beings and would be better candidates (and probably be better Presidents) than Trump, but they decided to stick with the old guy by Lord only knows what logic. Nostalgia? Hubris? Revenge? Sticking it to the man? I dunno. It would be easy to blame Trump for his own conviction except I’m not sure what I’m blaming him for. What exactly is he guilty of?

Is that a rhetorical question or are you just being obtuse?

No, I genuinely would like to know.

He cheated on his wife with a porn star and then paid her off to keep her mouth shut during a Presidential campaign.

Well, that’s bad, but it’s not a crime. If it were, then Bill Clinton would have spent some quality time in Leavenworth. Don’t forget that Congress has set aside a slush fund of taxpayer money for these same situations. That’s a waste of taxpayer money (and probably a waste of A LOT of taxpayer money given the number of sleazes we currently have in Congress) but it’s not illegal.

But the payoff came from his campaign funds as a business expense. Or was it from his business funds for a campaign expense? I get confused about that. But whatever it was, it’s gotta be illegal.

It’s not for certain that this is true, but even if it were, it’s a misdemeanor crime that’s beyond the statute of limitations. Alvin Bragg got around that by tying it to an unspecified Federal crime concerning campaign finance and calling it a felony, but he’s been really vague about what the Federal crime is and whatever that crime is, it’s one that Trump was never charged with. This whole thing has the feel of situational ethics logic: 1. Trump is evil. 2. Since he’s evil we are justified in doing everything we can to stop him, even if what we do is immoral, illegal, or possibly even evil also. It’s just not a good idea to become as bad as your adversary just because he’s bad. “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Joseph Stalin said that. Whatever you do in your life or wherever your life takes you, don’t be like Joseph Stalin.

Well, twelve jurors disagreed with you.

And going by the judge’s instructions, they probably did the right thing. The judge’s instructions were something along the lines of, “We all know he’s guilty of something. You just have to leave the courtroom, pretend to deliberate for a while, and come back with a conviction.” Okay, it wasn’t quite that direct, but it’s clear the judge REALLY wanted a conviction and left the jurors without much wiggle room. We’ll know more when the tell-all books come out, as they inevitably will.

There’s no way this survives the appeal process, but the appeal won’t be heard until after the election, so it won’t matter. This was far more about the upcoming election than it was about justice.

Then let’s switch subjects and talk about the election. How do you think this will affect the election in November?

There aren’t a lot of voters out there that could be swayed, but the polling is close enough that any disturbance in the force could have a big impact. There are three possibilities. The first is that this verdict motivates Trump’s supporters and sways a few of the independents and convinces a few Never Trumpers to come back to Trump to prove a point. That could help Trump. We’re already seeing some of that happening now, but rage is a hard emotion to maintain for five months. The second possibility would be that five months of listening to “convicted felon Donald Trump” in Joe Biden campaign ads moves independents to Biden. A lot of independent voters are what they call “low information voters” and only read the headlines, so that’s definitely a possibility, although it’s equally possible that a lot of those voters just stay home. Certainly, the “Trump is icky” sentiment is a big reason why he lost in 2020. The third possibility is that in the next five months circumstances make it such that this verdict won’t matter at all.

You sound like you’re avoiding the question.

Oh, I am, because I lean towards the third possibility, which is scary. It would take something pretty catastrophic to have that kind of impact. Sadly, there’s a lot of potential catastrophes out there just waiting for their opportunity.

Man, I really miss boredom.